Home, 8 in 10 ready to renovate with incentives

In Italy, renovating homes is a growing trend, while knowledge of fire safety regulations and the energy class of one's home is limited. This is what emerges from the results of the survey "Towards Green Homes between energy efficiency and forgotten safety" conducted by Nomisma on behalf of Rockwool, world leader in the production of sustainable stone wool products and solutions.

Seventy per cent of homeowners in Italy plan to renovate by 2034 and 61% said they had already done so in the last 10 years. In particular, it is owners living in single and multi-family units who are more inclined to renovate than those living in apartment blocks, regardless of the size of the house. Owners of older properties are more inclined to renovate and are very sensitive to the issue of energy efficiency, despite the fact that 41% have not yet assessed the energy class of their home. The urgency to carry out interventions that can no longer be postponed loses relevance in future interventions in favour of a greater focus on reducing energy consumption (53 per cent). There is still very little attention paid to fire safety, on which a very limited knowledge of regulations also emerged (27 per cent), indicating that this is still an under-the-radar issue on which greater awareness and culture must be created. Insurance policies, on the other hand, were found to be the preferred fire protection strategy (35%). A significant proportion of owners, however, have not taken any safety measures (24 per cent) or do not know what to do (23 per cent).

If for one out of two homeowners the investments needed to carry out the interventions are the main obstacle to renovating their home, the availability of incentive packages favours the drive to renovate. In fact, 44% of homeowners said that they had taken advantage of incentives to carry out renovation work, with Bonus Casa (41%) being used more frequently, followed by Superbonus 110% (32%) and Ecobonus (24%). The presence of a system of subsidies would significantly strengthen the decision to renovate for those who are already intent on doing so in the next 10 years (eight out of 10 owners), and even the 34% of those who are reluctant to do so might decide to undertake renovation with an appropriate incentive.

Among the renovations already carried out and those planned for the future, a growing interest emerged in improving thermal insulation and installing photovoltaic panels to achieve greater energy efficiency. In fact, six out of 10 homeowners showed a high level of interest in the choice of insulation materials used.

On the knowledge of the EU Epbd directive, so-called 'Green Homes', just under half of homeowners - 48% - expressed that they were aware of it, however, a large proportion recognise as positive the opportunities related to energy upgrading and renovation of their property. About 45 per cent of homeowners, on the other hand, are not inclined to adapt their property to the directive, while about a quarter declared themselves willing.